To protect various targets, such as for example vehicles, ships, bunkers or similar targets, against attacking missiles, use is often made of versions of protection equipment that have a number of protection elements which can be used optionally for combating the incoming missile.
German published patent specification No. DE 26 12 673 C1 discloses protection elements that can be triggered as and when required to combat an incoming missile, such as for example a hollow-charge projectile. The protection element has for this purpose a multiplicity of interceptor explosive charges, which can be triggered individually or in groups.
It has been found to be disadvantageous in the case of protection equipment with such protection elements that, although it offers good protection against a first incoming missile, under some circumstances a second missile approaching from the same direction is no longer intercepted, since the corresponding interceptor explosive charges have already been triggered to combat the first missile.